@Grayday I think you don't require either a financial advisor or planning. You just need time to sit down and work out what you spend your money on and what the household budget it. There are a number of ways to do this, including looking through your bank/card statements and also keeping a detailed spending diary. Ideally you will need to do both.

Realistically, if you are planning a reduction in salary, you need to understand how the shortfall would be handled, and how much of a shortfall there would be. Be clever with tax credits and how they are apportioned. Remember to compare net salary not gross one - lots of online calculators can help out here.

I agree with a few here - MABS is definitely a good starting point in terms of workout out your budget etc. Their website is full of good information.

Other things to keep in mind are:

Switching utilities - via bonkers.ie takes about 5 minutes and could save hundreds per year

Are you earning nothing on deposit when you could overpay your mortgage and save ~3.5%

Do you shop around for the next value on things?

There are also come very clever apps for budgeting also if you are so inclined

I personally use direct debits etc for annual bills or pay with credit card and I then use a set amount of cash per week for day to day shopping, one withdrawal from atm every Friday and keep the receipts for everything. I usually over a cup of coffee once a week write them all in so I know what it was spent on. I never take out random regular bits from atm and always fill the car for example rather than odd amounts here and there. I have been doing this 20+yrs so it's second nature at this stage and I know exactly how much money I need to put away on a weekly basis to cover all regular bills.

I also then have several bank accounts, bog standard savings ones that have no charges and a set amount goes into them each week for things like annual gas fill/holidays/car maintenance and a misc one for anything unexpected. At the end of the year I clear out any surplus, a treat for me! and start again.

Grayday, what I did a number of years ago is a spreadsheet with all my monthly expenses and income written on it. It covers the whole year so in January I know approximately how much money I'll need each month and also that some months will more expensive than others (hols, Xmas etc)

I update it weekly so that I don't overspend or if I overspend - to reduce my spendings in the following weeks. I have all my bills on it, Mortgage. weekly grocery, unexpected expenses (set amount each month). Every single position rounded up so if I pay 55 for something I put 60 in the spreadsheet. Once I update it weekly it updates the amount of disposable income I'm left with until next payday.

Once u have everything on ur spreadsheet and update it weekly it's very easy to control your finances.

That's a sort of a MABS job but they are unlikely to do it for you unless you were in financial difficulties. Their website though is a good place to have a look at re budgeting. The first thing they would do anyway is send you off with a spending diary and tell you fill it for a month at least, in fact you could probably pick up their pack at any of the offices, they have a standard pack put together to start people off, probably post it to you if you give a ring.

Statements don't show everything on a day to day basis, they will cover the big items probably but leakage of cash on a daily basis is often the biggest culprit to where money is going. I actually used to advise on this very thing but no longer work in that area. I'd imagine citizens info would just refer you to MABS.

Start now maybe and keep a record for next month then that combined with the info you can get from statements and some pointers re doing a budget from MABS site would give you a good idea of annual budget. I just went online today and printed off bin charges and electricity for the past year as I do an annual budget up every year so I am updating the 2018 one.

In my opinion the best thing to do is to keep every receipt for a month, statements won't necessarily tell you what you spend it on, especially if you take out cash.

Then just work out what you spend it on.

Depends how much and in what way you take your parental leave, I take some during all the school holidays but as I book it in Jan my work splits the loss out over the year so I didn't really lose much especially as I'm not paying for childcare in the hols.

Thanks for all the replies. I think I'm good for pension etc. What I need is for someone to sit down and gather data from our statements over the past 6 months to see where our money goes. I could do it myself but keep putting it off or just don't have time. I'm considering taking parental leave and I just want to know if the sums will work. Don't know if such a person exists to do this. I could just take a day of annnual leave and get it done I suppose, but I feel someone else might spot things I don't.

You could try Invesco in Cork, we used them recently to go through our general finances (where our savings currently are, what would be best to do with them), they gave us advice but didn't try to push particular products. They are big so possibly do various areas but not sure.

Absolutely and there are a number of very good financial planners & investment analysts on that site, offering advice for free.

But it does come with a health warning - you might not like the answers you get. The people on it tend to be black/white with their advice ! I have received fantastic advice from that site in the past.

You'd be amazed at the free advice you'd get on askaboutmoney.comAnd as others have said it really depends on which areas you'd like advice on. Mabs are a great service and have a v informative website

I agree, QFAs are ten a penny and it's a very easy qualification to get, CFA means more obviously but I would be looking for experience as well. I know a few CFAs too that I wouldn't have much faith in, easy get qualifications without much real life experience so I'm afraid I hold more store by experience than letters.

@Grayday I think you need to consider what exactly you are looking for? Are you looking for someone to help you with long term financial planning or someone to assist you with financial advice? They are two very different things. A QFA (Qualified Financial Advisor) is certainly not a Certified Financial Planner.

If you are genuinely interested in financial planning advice, I would suggest looking here as the starting point

Please note, the first thing any financial planner will do is give you a massive questionnaire to fill in, detailing your entire financial estate, all assets & liabilities, and also your financial objectives. Doing that alone can give you a very good picture of what you are looking for, and answer a lot of your own questions - unless your financial estate is very complex.

I looked into this last year - was trying to devise a family financial strategy - and if memory serves me correct it would have cost around 1500 euro for the full financial review. This was for a fully fee based approach with no commission on any product purchased. I did not go for it in the end, as I answered most of my own questions by filling in the forms :)

The link above has a link to all Certified Financial Planners in Ireland and is broken down by county. You may find that useful...

I agree with above, it very much depends on what sort of advice you want, all are not expert at everything. I am also QFA (Qualified Financial Advisor) even though I don't work at it anymore except in a voluntary capacity and while I would be expert on lots of areas I would know much less about say for example pensions. So it's important to pick someone that can meet the needs you have plus of course they are mainly on commission so the hard sell is often a problem!

What exactly are you looking for? I was a financial advisor (pre kids!). There's no such thing as unbiased advice as allAdvisors get paid a commission for placing business. If you decide to see an advisor you should ask for a fee based structure. Basically you'll pay them an amount say 300 for advice and in return they don't take commission from company you place business with. Works out alot cheaper.

If you're just looking for general advice feel free to PM me and I'll help if I can!